Realizing Value from Real Time Well Monitoring in BP's Field of the Future Program

Abstract

BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE program makes use of in-well sensors, automation, and computer networks to move real time operations data to remote sites for analysis, enabling informed and faster intervention decisions. Realizing the value from such technology investments is not automatic, and requires an integrated approach to technology insertion that holistically addresses diverse issues of technology installation, stakeholder engagement and alignment, business process change, roles and skills as a managed project. We refer to this type of integrated approach applied to digital oil field developments as business transformation, which was described in outline in SPE 99779. This paper describes a recent case study from a Deepwater Gulf of Mexico field where there has been rapid and quantifiable business impact from the use of real time well data in the performing dynamic surveillance and allocating production processes. BP's proprietary Integrated Surveillance Information System (ISIS) was put into global deployment starting in 2006. The system delivers well performance data to field and office sites in near real time. To realize the value from the ISIS tool, asset teams must be informed and aligned about the possible impacts on roles, skills, and business processes before, during, and after technology deployment. The case study starts with an examination of some of the historical factors that have limited rapid, global adoption of new technologies in BP. It describes the unique aspects of the overall business transformation project design and timeline, and some of the key work products required to establish both the case for change and business case. Finally, it presents some of the dimensions of business value that can be associated with the use of intelligent well information. Looking forward, the paper describes some of the remaining challenges and opportunities dealing with scale up, acceleration, and centralized business process governance. Introduction The digital oilfield concept has been widely discussed for more than three years in E&P literature. Benefits of enhanced recovery, decreased operating costs, and increased production derived from continuous monitoring and proactive intervention have been forecast as the consequence of this transformation to real time asset optimization. Nevertheless, there have been references to the difficulty in crossing the chasm in adoption between some early trials or pilots and main stream uptake. BP's FIELD OF THE FUTURE program makes use of in-well sensors, automation, and computer networks to move real time operations data to remote sites for analysis, enabling informed and faster intervention decisions. Even at the single asset level, there is a big difference between installation of new technology and adoption. Since many IT technology projects are heavily front-end loaded, it is only by reaching the adoption stage where people use it to support their work tasks that technology introduction begins to generate benefits. If our common goal is predictable, fast, cost effective adoption of one or more real time technologies, understanding how to replicate successful adoptions and reduce adoption risks makes an important case study. Our thesis was that a second project, which we refer to as business transformation, was required after installation to meet the goal of effective adoption. The two project stages are shown diagrammatically in Figure 1.

Improving Value in Oil Business with Integrated Operations

“…According to Feineman, Newman, & Campbell (2008), "It is true that the combination of new information types and system capabilities create the potential for new ways of working to be introduced. It is also true that continuing to work in an unchanged way will result in new information being ignored or limited staff resources being overloaded by data.…”

Antipatterns: A Tool for Continuous Improvement

“…Previous SPE papers, including Feineman (2006), and Feineman, et al (2008), have described how business process models can be as a compact way to describe technical work activities for best practice capture and transfer. Those models rely on abstraction to clearly communicate the sequence of activities to get to a useful business result, and are appropriate where the same activity sequence is reused multiple times.…”

Pace and Scale Deployment of a Real-Time Information System

“…In 2001, BP began to investigate how to best utilize emerging digital technologies in the upstream business, leading to the development of the FIELD OF THE FUTURE concept (Reddick et al, 2006, and2008).…”